South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 18 September 1943
Veteran Colliers Show the Way
Thirteen “old hands” at Dearne Valley Colliery, Little Houghton, with an average age of 63 are getting coal so well that by hand-mining they have taken out of this adit mine 7,972 tons during the past 12 months.
Colliers all, with the exception of one who trams to another of their number, not one is under 50 and the oldest, aged 72, is among the six who have produced during the 12 months an aggregate of 4,298 tons working an average of 4.41 shifts a week. Calculated over a period of 52 weeks, taking no account of holidays and periods of illness, this is .17, or a sixth of a shift a week better than the average for the colliery, whose own average is above that for the county. And the average age of these men is 64, their average wage £4 14s. 3d.
Mr. S. G. Shaw, general manager and secretary of the company, told a South Yorkshire Times reporter on Wednesday: “It is a family undertaking of 600 men, one pit with one seam started in 1900. Working is by a drift from the outcrop to the shaft and seam. Our main difficulty is water. The pumping load varies from 1,200 to 1,500 gallons per minute day and night all the year round; between three and three and a half million tons of water per year. Extraction is by long wall, machine and conveyor methods. Between a quarter and a third of our output is got by electric heading machines and the remainder by hand.”
“These men walk two miles or more to their work, 200 yards below ground. Richard J. Wall, of 9, George Street, Low Valley, Wombwell, whose 785 tons heads the list, is one of the younger men of the group. At 60 he has worked 47 years in pits, 22 years at Dearne Valley. Conditions he thought were good. The work was hard but youngsters could get used to that. “We don’t get the coal by lying down. I believe in working for what I get, but it’s time we were out of it.”
Aaron Gledhill is 72 and the oldest, but he is among the best six. So is 65 year old William Abbott, who works beside him and trams for him. They did not want to end a 23 years’ working association so they are allowed to continue together. Gledhill lives at 24, John Street, Great Houghton, and will this month have completed 61 years in mines and 28 at Dearne Valley. He preferred tramming in the pit at Cleckheaton as an 11-years-old half-timer to work in a carpet mill and says he still would. He had worked at the face since he was 20 and thought pit work did not do a man harm. The trouble was that boys wanted the higher posts in the pit; if they could not have them they would not have the pits. His contribution to the total was 618 tons.
Abbott lives at Snape Hill Road, Darfield, and his 638 tons comes after 52 years in the pit. He said: “We are keeping on now because there are a lot of lads at the front who need our help.” Tom Dent (62), another of the six, producing 771 tons, has had 52 years of pit life. He lives at 3, Mary Road, Little Houghton. He finds time to rear nine cows on a six-acre smallholding he has.
Three sons of Walter Walker (62), 45, Barnsley Road, Highgate, work at the colliery. Their father’s output was 597 tons. Bringing men into the pits seemed to him to be a good idea so long as they were given a fair chance. The dangers of pit life were not overwhelming.
Accredited with 598 tons, Arthur Jones (64), 57, Stonebridge Lane, Great Houghton, has a son, Bertie, who trams for him. Another son, William Arthur (38) is a dataller on the night shift. Conditions, not the exacting nature of the work, were, he thought deterring volunteers.
John Thomas Burton (65), 21, Hope Street, Low Valley, started at the pit in 1915, and pit work at 14. Proper training, said this producer of 549 tons, and, on the part of the trainee, patience and interest would be required.
William Fareham (63), of 27, North Street, Darfield, producer during that year of 590 tons of coal, said that work in mechanised pits was twice as easy as in hand worked pits.
Completing the team of veteran colliers are: J. Ford (61), Fieldhouse, Darfield, 403 tons; F. Holford (61), 1, Croft Street, Great Houghton, 780 tons; J. Conyers (63), 36, Doncaster Road, Darfield, 702 tons; J. H. Elwell (60), 36, Dearne Street, Great Houghton, 378 tons; F. Turner (60), 11, Coronation Street, Darfield, 557 tons.